In addition to the routine Quality Control (QC) of operational ESA Earth Observation (EO) missions and of the ESA Third Party Missions (TPM), the Sensor Performance, Products, and Algorithm (SPPA) team is involved in numerous other EO activities, including:

The Quality Working Groups: QWG

The role of the Quality Working Group (QWG) is to advise the agency, through the SPPA team, on the operations performance of a mission's instruments and its products, as well as on the evolution of algorithms and processors. Each ESA EO mission is supported by one or more instrument specific QWG, which is composed by personnel from scientific and engineering organisations with proven expertise in the particular fields covered by the instrument.

ESA has been collecting and processing EO data from ESA missions (for example ERS-1/2, Envisat), and ESA TPM (for example AVHRR, Landsat, ALOS) for nearly three decades. To facilitate the various end-user and science applications, there is a need for the agency to support and maintain the quality aspects across missions with similar sensors. The SPPA team multi-sensor activities focus primarily on the sensor Fundamental Data Records (FDR), i.e. the level-1 data, on the instrument's core products, as outlined in the Mission Requirements Documents (MRD) of each mission, and on some select additional geophysical parameters that facilitate the improvements of the sensor FDR.

Maintenance and improvements of instrument characterisation and algorithm definition are crucial activities to guarantee that the requirements formulated in the MRD (Mission Requirement Document) are effectively fulfilled and potentially enhanced. These activities are nominally managed within the QWG, though some complementary studies are funded by ESA for supporting ad-hoc recalibration and reprocessing campaigns as well as for developing advanced scientific processors and innovative geophysical products.

The Quality Control framework for Earth Observation, which consists of a set of seven guidelines, is endorsed by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, and has been developed by the satellite calibration and validation (Cal/Val) communities to meet the needs of the Earth Observation communities. These QA4EO guidelines have been written with the aid of national metrology institutes of the United States and Europe and, where appropriate, are based on best practices of the wider EO and non-EO communities. Within this context, the SPPA team manages a series of projects addressing sensor calibration and traceability, as well as end-to end product traceability and uncertainty estimations.

QA4EO-ATLAS: A pulsed Tuneable LAser system for the characterisation of Spectrometers

Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) are a suite of independent, fully characterized, and traceable ground measurements that follow the guidelines outlined by the GEO/CEOS Quality Assurance framework for Earth Observation (QA4EO). These FRM provide the maximum Return On Investment (ROI) for a satellite mission by delivering, to users, the required confidence in data products, in the form of independent validation results and satellite measurement uncertainty estimation, over the entire end-to-end duration of a satellite mission. Within this context, the SPPA team manages a series of projects targeting the validation of ESA altimetry, atmosphere, land, and ocean products.

Collection of in-situ campaigns measurements is essential to support products quality assessment and uncertainty budget estimation. As a complement to the validation data acquired in the frame of the Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM), additional Cal/Val activities are supported by ESA, to study specific climatological and geographical conditions or to design and test novel validation methodologies.